God Remembers Your Sins No More
What do you do when sin weighs heavy on your mind? When you are acutely aware of the choices you’ve made that have led to regret. When you feel like you have abused God’s love and kindness.
If you live long enough as a Christian you will experience this. And if we don’t have a framework to navigate the caverns of regret and guilt we will be plunged into hopelessness. But the beauty of the Gospel of Jesus is that we are not hopeless, even when we feel most unlovable.
Gospel Hope
One of the most helpful parts of Hebrews is that it helps connect the old testament sacrificial system with Jesus Christ. It shows us that Jesus is both the perfect high priest, here to take away our sins, and He is also the sacrifice. The later part of Hebrews talks about the implications of Jesus being this high priest and sacrifice. Consider Hebrews 8:12- “For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”
A commentary on that verse says:
“He knows how serious our sin is. He knows every way we have sinned and the beauty is God says, “I will be merciful towards your inequities and I will remember your sins no more.” No more. Just let that soak in, those two words. No more. So when the adversary accuses you, when the adversary reminds you of all the things you have done, tries to beat you down with the weight of past sin, just soak in Hebrews chapter eight, verse 12. God has said to you, “I will be merciful towards your inequities and I will remember them no more,” and so if He remembers them no more, then you do not have to dwell on them. Yes, yes, let’s learn from the pain of past sin as we pursue holiness in the present and the future. But let us not beat ourselves up for that which God remembers no more.”
One of the implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that your sins are remembered no more by God in heaven. He forgives. This does not mean that there are never consequences for our sins or that God never disciplines us when we disobey. He does, out of love for us. (Hebrews 12)
There may be a fatherly displeasure over our sin, but relationally, God does not hold our sins over our heads. That’s what this text means. In the context of our relationship, God is not holding my sins over my head looking for reasons to hate me. He forgives. And part of that forgiveness is that He deals with us and our sins, teaching us lessons, and then He moves it into the trash bin and we move forward together.
Thankful for this kind of love,
Josh.